The Hidden Six
by kisskisslovya
Summary: After Archangel leaves Omega, our heroine realizes she must step up and save those now once again in danger. With a new, vicious gang leader on the rise, she and the rest of her group will have their work cut out for them.
1. Chapter 1

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Chapter 1

Multiple shots are fired from the pistol… the back-kick of the untrained, lethal weapon in my hands unbalances me, and I'm unprepared for the talons swooping through the air, and they make contact with my face.

I wake up, and my scars are burning like they were on fire. I touch the two lines going down the top of my forehead, over my eyes and down onto my right cheek. That's one of the problems of being a biotic; the constant energy flowing through your body, heightening all your senses, which is completely uncontrollable for me when I'm asleep, the cells in my body becoming mutated and ballistic.

I take in a deep breath through my nose and slowly release it through my parted lips. The blue highlight emanating from my skin slowly disappears.

Then, I am suddenly aware of my bed-mate. No one I really know, or care to know, just some guy that I met yesterday at Afterlife who was attractive enough to be my escort. I've repeated this time over again, and it's become a habit, but you're less likely to get mugged by an old turian with the hots for human girls when you have a man with you.

Not that I couldn't handle now, but it is difficult to use my biotics in my dancer's outfit.

Yes, I'm a stripper at Afterlife. As my cover job, at least. My real job is a body-guard for Aria. I knew from the moment that I got on Omega that I had to get on her good side. Luckily for me she likes girls with scars, tangible or not, and a lust for vengeance. It also seemed that she like to see a girl, actually, scratch that, a person who can 'actually get things done.' I guess her Turians and Batarians were less than up to her standards.

The brunette beside me shifts, starting to wake up, and I'm quick to tell him to get the hell out. He gets up sluggishly and gathers his clothes, but he's grumpy and reluctant to leave.

Suddenly, as the door slides and locks behind him, I have the urge to take a shower, so I head into my bathroom. While I'm in the shower I turn on my radio, setting it to a local news station.

"-the turian vigilante 'Archangel' has been more active lately, stopping several red sand dealings and high class muggings, and has, as of yet, been off the radar of several local gangs, and our own writers and reporters as well.

"Section 42B could expect asteroid collisions, but none are expected to breach the barriers of-" And I shut it off.

Archangel…

The so-called turian savior of the weak people of Omega.

What a joke.

I shake the person out of my head and get dressed.

Sky cars race overhead, news casts repeat the daily broadcasts, while Vorcha hide in the nooks and crannies of the street, hissing insults towards everyone who passes by.

A batarian salesman is talking fastidiously to a well-armored female human, even for Omega. She's accompanied by a bald human female with a plethora of tattoos and a salarian I recognize; Mordin Solus, who ran a clinic just nearby.

Though I'm somewhat curious, I keep walking. I'm meeting up with some friends for lunch at a nearby restaurant.

I walk inside the small café, and see them already sitting down at a table in front of the bar. Alfred Jones and Asao Kishimoto, my closest friends.

Alfred has black, shiny hair and his eyes are a deep, luminous blue, while Asao has short, dark-brown hair and big brown eyes. They wave at me and I walk over and sit down.

They're smiling at me, more of an evil smirk, and I'm thoroughly annoyed.

"You came to the club yesterday, didn't you?" I ask, knowing that they did.

"Alfred was tempted to ask for a lap dance, but I told him to refrain from it if he wanted to leave with his spine intact." Asao said, chuckling heartily as he said it.

"What can I say, you're a good dancer." Alfred responds, shaking head and shrugging his shoulders.

"That's not going to make our friendship awkward at all." I say sarcastically, glaring up at him through my fingers.

"Oh well, it was going to happen sooner or later. We're men and we're curious that our friend is a stripper. "Asao says calmly.

I start to correct him, telling him that my suit never comes off, when something smashes through the window and rolls onto the floor, emitting a smoke screen.

I flip the table over as someone busts in through the door. My pistol unfolds as I duck behind the now sideways table. I carefully and slowly look around the edge, and a shot is fired at me. I duck back behind and look over to my left. Asao is holding his own pistol, and Alfred makes up a combat drone to my left. This sort of thing isn't too uncommon on Omega.

I look over to my right just as the bartender is shot down behind the bar. I create one of my biotic barriers and roll behind the bar. The bartender is turian, but his shotgun wound is blatant and I use some medi-gel to seal it, but he can't get up.

As I look up over the counter, a krogan slams into the table, knocking Asao over. Alfred rolls out of the way, but Asao isn't so lucky. The krogan is poised over him, his shotgun pointed directly over Asao's face, point-blank.

I duck and shut my eyes tightly, but I hear the shot fired, loud and clear as it echoes through my head.

I can't help but picture it even though I don't catch a second of it.

Quickly, my biotics flare up, rage overpowering rational thought.

Everything blurs, but I can make out the bodies flying through the air, bones cracking on impact with whatever they hit, whether it's the walls, other bodies, or the random tables thrown about.

Even though my rage gives me extra strength, the krogan brings me down.

I'm in the same position as Asao, the krogan leaning over me, finger just itching to pull the trigger. My eyes glare up at him, begging him to pull the goddamn thing already, but my mind shouts 'Don't want to die here!'

A shot is fired, but instead of my skin being ripped apart, the krogan forehead is blown through with a single bullet, blood and some internal organs flying out along with the bullet.

The krogan falls on top of me, heavy, but nothing my biotics can't throw off.

As he lands beside me, I look up to see a figure in the doorway.

It's just like one of the old movies that I used to watch on Friday nights at the local rec-center on Earth when I was a kid.

The light shines in through the door, and all I can make out is a silhouette holding a sniper-rifle.

He steps forward, shooting the last thug standing with a one-handed shot. He picks his way around and over the bodies lying on the floor, and heads towards me. Alfred hurriedly makes his way over to me, pointing one of the thugs' shotguns at the newcomer. When he gets to me he squats down, not taking his eyes of the now obvious turian newcomer. The turian holds his hands up in the air as a sign of peace, and Alfred lets some of his guard down.

He looks down at me and asks,

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I reply, using his hand to help myself up. "Just a few bruises. Where's Asao?"

"He's…" Alfred starts, but he trails off and looks over his shoulder to a body whose face is utterly disfigured, lying in a pool of blood. Completely still.

I attempt to hold back my tears, and it's all I can do not to bawl out crying.

"Who're you?" Alfred asks the turian, his voiced filled with miss-fired anger.

"Most people call me 'Archangel.'" He responds. "You'll have to excuse me for not giving my real name out publicly. But I should get going, if you're alright. Goodbye." And he steps through the door, running down into the alley.

I dust myself off as I get up.

_Grin and bear it._

Asao isn't going to get up.

_Grin and bear it._

Grin… I attempt a smile as I take the phrase literally.

But it's hard smiling with tears running down your face.


	2. Chapter 2

** Reviews are always nice. I do not own Mass Effect. If I did, there would be a Jokeromance.**

**This chapter also gets a little brutal. Well, about as brutal as I can write.**

Chapter 2

Two weeks later…

Asao got a proper burial on his home planet of Eden Prime, but his face is still lingering around on Omega for me. I'll think I see him on every other male human, and then I get the image of his disfigured and lifeless body lying in a pool of his own blood, and it's the same depressing fight in my mind all over again.

According to the extranet, I'm coping quickly and well for a human, but my senses are all but shut off right now, and nothing really computes.

But I keep my mind on working, because if you slip and fall, Omega doesn't help or give two shits about you. No, I was going to pull through. I didn't care how long it took for me to get over it, I was going to.

Go to my job, let drooling jerks watch my ass as I watch Aria, and get through everything as if nothing had changed.

Except, a certain incident changed everything about my life and happened not too shortly after the attack on the café.

The bass of the music is pounding and somewhat painful after listening to it for a six hour shift, and I head out through the front of Afterlife, ready to go home.

Then suddenly, BAM!

An explosion from within the club throws me forward and onto the ground, violently, leaving me numb for a few moments.

My eyes flicker open, my palms supporting the upper half of my body, my knees on the ground. My ears are ringing, making the screams of those around me seem muffled, while I situate my eyes, trying to get a sense of what just happened.

I stand up, and see the batarian and elcor bouncers on the ground, flung forward onto the steps, just like me, knocked out cold by the impact. There are more screams emanating from inside the club, and pounding on the doors.

The whole place is on fire, flames lapping overhead, fiery fingers gripping out to try and catch a sky-car, or anything else that happens to get too close.

Aria was in there. Right now, my only purpose was my job, and my job was to protect her.

I run towards the doors, and pull it apart with my hands, aided with the power of my biotics. Asari, turians, batarians, and humans scramble through the gap, coughing and funneling out along with clouds of gray smoke.

I shove my way through the throngs of people, and blow open the second pair of doors leading into the main part of the club. Every mixture of red and yellow colors overpowers everything else, but I push them back, blue mixing with the orange and red and yellow. I squint through the flames and smoke, and then I hear the sound of a shotgun.

Following the sound, I make out Aria, still in her booth, fighting off mercenaries.

_The bastards!_ I think; what better way to make sure an assassination attempt goes right then to kill her while a fire caused by a well placed and built bomb rages on, tearing through the establishment, while the fire-containment system is conveniently not working? No one would ever think to look for bullet wounds on a charred body.

My pace quickens, moving around the center column. The signs on the walls still attempt to read out "AFTERLIFE," but they glitch and quiver, becoming blurry for a split second while flames leap all around them. The flames cover both staircases, so I use my biotics to push myself up, slamming myself into the glass, rolling across a booth and onto the tile as glass shards litter the floor.

The mercs are distracted for a second, which is all I need to throw them through the window with my biotics, slamming them up against the walls.

Aria gives me a look that's the closest thing to a 'Thanks' that I would ever get from her, and we jump over the cracked windowsill and onto the main floor again. Suddenly, another explosion goes off near the place where the front doors used to be, collapsing the exit. On the floor are bodies of people who were too close to the explosion, burned and not moving.

From behind us, we hear the door to lower Afterlife open, somehow still on even while the rest of the technology in the building is fried. As I turn, I see a turian dressed in an Eclipse uniform, with two krogans trailing behind him with shotguns.

"Hello, Aria." He says, and then turns his head towards me, spouting "Human," in a very condescending tone.

I feel my teeth clench up and my eyebrows furrow. It seemed we had a very similar dislike for the others' species.

"So, ever since that Shepard person killed the previous leader of our gang, I've been coming up with ways to prove that I'm worthy of leading it." He tells us, in a calm and self-satisfied way, as if he had just beaten us in a game of friendly (or not so friendly) chess. "And then it hit me. Kill Aria, the bitch bending the establishment of Omega to her every whim." This he says with almost as much hatred as when he addressed me.

"You bastard! Who the hell do you think keeps this 'establishment' from going under?" Aria spouts back at him, losing her cool.

"I'm sure that we can handle the place without you." He replies confidently.

"If you had any idea of histories of any culture, you would know that people don't just sit idly by and take whatever is being thrown at them, even with shotguns to their head. Or do the turians in your history not have the balls?" I spit at him, my biotics flaring up again.

"Oh, so your little dancer has claws?" He says chuckling. "I've tired of this game. Kill them, boys!" He says, then adds, "And make the little human girl suffer."

Just as I throw my biotics at him, his camouflage turns on, and he's gone, while the krogans charge.

I try to push out a circular pulse of my biotic energy, but my power is drained and I barely have the strength to roll out of the way. Aria is dealing with her own krogan, but my attention turns quickly to the door that's opening again.

Suddenly, my mind jumps to Archangel. I look at the door hopefully, but my hopes are quelled as more Eclipse mercs come through instead.

Then, from an overhead broadcast system I hear an evil, turian chuckle. "By the way, your precious vigilante savior has left Omega, for good I believe."

My mouth opens in awe. For some reason I felt so dependent on him right then and he wasn't even on Omega to help. Why would he suddenly up and leave when there were still people in danger? I barely have time to think it when one of the few human mercs grabs me by the neck and slams me against the wall.

"Well, well, well, lookie what we've got here." He says, licking his lips. I lean my head back, away from his breath. "Such a cute little girl for Omega. Not many human girls dancin' on these poles. Let me tell you, asari never do it for me, their boobs are way too small and-"

"Hey, Gergan, the boss left that one for me so that I could make her suffer. She's mine!" the krogan who charged at me earlier growls at him.

"Oh, believe me, I can make her suffer. I bet you look real cute with your face contorted in pain." His other hand sweeps the long bangs on the right side of my face, which covers up the two scars.

"Aw, shit." He says disappointedly. "What the fuck's up with these scars? They make you look so ugly all of a sudden. Total buzz kill."

That was it. You could gawk at me and undress me with your eyes all you want, even threaten me, but I was not about to let you say I was ugly because of _those fucking scars!_

My biotics had been building up for a while, and I released a strong blast, knocking the merc all the way across the room.

"I… never… wanted… THESE SCARS!" I shout, gripping the krogan's head plate and slamming his face into my knee. I hear him grunt, as his blood trickles over my ripped and singed outfit.

My attention turns to the other krogan, who was getting ready to shoot at Aria again, who had been moving from hiding spot to hiding spot in an attempt to stall her death in order to come up with a plan.

I lift him up with my biotics from feet away, and slam him harshly over the railing of the center column, hearing his spine crack and letting his body slip over it to fall down into lower Omega.

When I turn towards the weaker Eclipse mercs who had been watching me tear the krogans apart, I hear gasps of fear. Many turn around and head towards the door, but I pulled up a barrier between them and their only chance of safety, while other got down on the ground, throwing their weapons aside.

Those cowards would die last, I told myself, after watching all of their fellow mercs die bloodily.

But for now, I headed towards the one called Gergan.

With each step I took toward him, his face contorted more into a look of utter fear. His face had turned ghost white, his eyes wide open with dread for his impending doom. My eyes squinted and my teeth barred in an evil grin, which made him tense up and his eyes would've gotten even bigger if they weren't already at widening capacity.

Just before I got to him, a shot was fired at me from behind. I turn; ready to tear the imbecile apart limb from limb. But luckily I stopped before my blue energy reached his throat.

"Stop!" He shouts as I look at his face.

"Alfred!" I exclaim. He's pointing a measly pistol at me his, face scrunched up in concentration.

As he lowers the pistol, his face softens. "Please, just stop this." He asks, his face matching the begging tone in his voice.

My eyes are wide, mouth open. I couldn't believe he was here. My biotic barrier dissipates, and the mercenaries scramble through, quick to get away from their previously impending doom. As I sit there and stare at him, he raises his pistol again, shooting towards me.

I gasp, but the shots zoom over my shoulder, and I look back to see a bullet graze the side of Gergan's face.

He falls to his knees, but Alfred isn't done with him yet. Just as he reaches Gergan, his foot flies up through the air, making contact with the merc's jaw. The impact makes him fall backwards, and he lies down on his back, while Alfred's foot is placed on his neck. He quietly replies,

"She's not the only one who can kill you." He also leans down towards the merc's once again, terrified face and says something I can't hear.

Gergan takes one last look at me and then runs towards and out the door right after his fellow comrades.

Aria, who had been wary of me for the past few minutes, comes out from behind the table she was hiding behind. She smirks at Alfred, all too knowing. "Is that true?" She says, not losing her smile. He must've said it just loud enough for her to hear.

He nods, and she turns to me.

"And that's why you're my bodyguard." Her smile fades, and her hand moves up to rub her forehead. "But look at this fucking mess."

I turn to look, already knowing what lies there. Broken stripper poles, overturned tables, a collapsed entry, and two doors on opposite sides of the room. Some of the signs are still flickering, but you can't make out their contents.

Then I see the dead bodies that litter the floor. I could care less about the four mercs that were lying around here, dead, but the (probably) innocent civilians that littered the floor made me feel upset and slightly sick to my stomach. Was it really necessary?

My fatigue overwhelms me, and thankfully Alfred is there to catch me as I collapse.

The last thing I think before I slip out of consciousness is "These people need another savior. A hero. Another Archangel."

And my mind is made up.


End file.
